Who's Behind Americans Elect and What Can We Learn About Democracy From Them?

Interesting read from Micah Sifry at techPresident on Americans Elect, focused on its financial and political backing.

AMERICANS ELECT INTERNET CAMPAIGN
Americans Elect: Can an Internet-Powered 3rd Party Transform 2012? (Micah L. Sifry, techPresident) While AE says its delegates will drive the party's policies, it isn't just the hidden powers of the executive board that concern me. In our conversation last fall, Ackerman described wanting a process that would insure that the candidates of the party would present a balanced ticket representing the middle between the extremes of the two major parties. Experts from both sides of the political spectrum, he said, would be recruited to help frame the questions that candidates will be required to answer as part of the party's virtual primary process. But what is the "centrist" position on the minimum wage, I asked Ackerman. What is the "centrist" position on Afghanistan? In both cases, majority public opinion is well to the "left" of the center, if you define that center by taking an expert from each political party (or their related policy shops) and halving the difference. But Ackerman didn't have a reply, other than to say "We're an inkblot in the middle. How big it is depends on how the two oligopolists [i.e. the major parties] respond."